by Lamar Giles
“Ask your buddies.”
“Enough!”
His chest bumped mine. It took all my willpower not to back down. “Tell me what’s going on, Dad.”
“If you have any more information on Whispertown you need to hand it over to me. Now. It’s dangerous.”
“But you just said you don’t know anything about the killings—”
He exhaled slowly. “I don’t. Whispertown’s only dangerous to me, you, and your mother.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“The information on that drive is, most likely, the only reason we’re still walking this earth, son. Hand it over and I’ll explain.”
A large part of me screamed, Don’t do it, don’t trust him. I listened. “No. You explain, then I hand it over.”
The way his eyes blazed and his chest heaved, I thought he might try to snatch the drive from me. I was ready to run if he made a move.
Maybe he sensed my intent, knew he was at my mercy, for once. “Have it your way.”
Dad talked. Explained. Everything.
By the time he finished, I kind of wished he hadn’t.
CHAPTER 40
“WHISPERTOWN WASN’T MEANT FOR us,” DAD said. “Not me, you, or your mom.”
It sounded custom-freaking-made for us. Rowdy witnesses, no useful testimony. “I don’t understand.”
“They can’t find Kreso and I was on my third strike. We were done.”
“We . . . were?” I repeated the words in my head, forcing my brain to absorb their true meaning. “They were going to kick us out?”
“They did kick us out.” He spoke without looking at me. “When we left Idaho, we were supposed to be on our own. I needed to find a place for us to live, only there was nowhere to go. I couldn’t go back to Philly, and I don’t know any other place. We were a day or two away from being homeless.”
Homeless? “What happened, Dad?”
“I begged Bertram for another chance. There wasn’t much he could do, but he said he’d make some calls. Almost immediately he got back to me, told me there was a mayor in Virginia who wanted a word.
“When I got on the phone with Burke, I made my case. I told him all that stuff you’re supposed to say. I’m sorry. I know better now. I want a good life for my family.”
I want a good life for my family . . . that stuff you’re supposed to say?
“The whole time I heard Burke typing and buzzing his secretary for more coffee. I thought it was a done deal until he asked, ‘Got any special skills?’ I mentioned bookkeeping, and he got damn near giddy. Two weeks later, we were here.” He spread his arms high and wide, stared into the chemical cloud snaking overhead. “Basking in the glory.” His arms flopped at his sides and he faced me.
“That’s the big secret, Tony. Your old man is King Screw Up who managed to work one last con. I’m helping Burke cheat the federal government out of a lot of cash. Kreso Maric would love that. Are you happy now?”
Happy? No. I felt queasy, and not from the Stepton air. We were almost living on the street? Because he couldn’t keep an honest nine-to-five like most people? “What went wrong?”
He stared. Either genuinely confused or trying to avoid my line of questioning. I clarified: “The mayor got mad at you for something. Why else would he drive me to that construction site so I could tell you about it?”
“Oh, that.”
That? That what? “Dad!”
“You know about the kind of money we’re talking about here, right? Millions. It’s supposed to go to city projects, like that municipal center. Burke’s been sticking his hand in the cookie jar.”
I leaned into Dad, making sure I understood him. “He’s embezzling the money?”
Dad nodded.
I said, darkly, “And you’re good with numbers.”
Another confirmation. “His money’s as clean as your mother’s floors when I’m done. I did such a good job making those funds look all shiny and legal, I felt I deserved a bonus. He didn’t respond well.”
I’ll take care of the mayor. “You didn’t respond well to him not responding well, either. What did you do, Dad?”
“I told him to stay the hell away from you and”—he dropped his head, shameful—“I let it go.”
“You? Let it go?” My gaze shifted toward the parking spaces along the front of the Tax and Accounting Services office, where Dad’s SUV sat, and thought about the mayor’s mangled car, probably in some impound yard with blood on the seats.
“I did,” he insisted. “I didn’t want to risk the safety and security of my family again. I—I backed down, Tony.”
This is the messed-up part: as convincing as he sounded, I still didn’t know if I believed him. I was so used to his secrets, and lies, and general I-don’t-have-to-explain-myself attitude that his confessions felt like game. Even when he was expressing concern for me.
“What happened to you?” he asked, plucking at my singed shirt.
I didn’t need him pretending to care, I needed him to make sense of it all. “What’s Miguel Rios got to do with this?”
“I don’t know,” he said, disgusted. “Rios is small-time. Some weed, some meth, a little bootlegging. He’s no—”
“Kreso?” Was some old admiration for the boss coming back?
Coolly, “No. He’s no Kreso Maric. Him and Burke got something going on, but it’s none of my concern. I focus on the money.”
“Yeah, Dad. You do that.” I went for my bike, and he followed.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
To check on Reya and process all he’d told me. He didn’t need to know that, or anything else about me. Not anymore. “Don’t worry about it. Focus on the money.”
He sped up, spun me by the shoulder. “You don’t talk to me like that, not ever. I don’t care what you’re going through.”
“Even if it’s almost getting killed? Because that’s what happened. Your pals, who are none of your concern, put a bomb in my girl’s car. I could’ve been in it, Dad. If I had been it would’ve been your fault because the whole reason we’re in this crap town, with its crap air, and crap school, and crap”—I waved my arm, flustered—“crap Chinese food is you.”
He repeated things I said like he was reciting a riddle. “A bomb? Your girl’s car?”
“People are dying because of your final con. The mayor’s dirty, Miguel Rios is dirty, and I’m going to stop it. For my friend.”
Dad’s jaw flexed. “If you stop him, you stop us, too. Do you understand that? Do you know what Kreso wants to do to—”
“To you? To you, Dad. All this is about you.”
I didn’t know what I expected coming here. I guess the same thing I’d been expecting my whole life, for my dad to act like a dad. I walked away.
“Come back, Tony.”
“Why, Dad? To hear more BS excuses about why we’re in this mess?”
“No,” he said. “You made a deal.”
“What de—?” I remembered the plastic nub in my hand.
“Give me that flash drive.”
I looked at it. Then at him. “Mom said we’re a lot alike. Guess she’s right, ’cause now I feel I deserve a bonus, too. I’m keeping it.” I stuck the drive in my pocket.
“Tony!”
I mounted my bike before he could stop me, put some distance between us, then yelled the most hurtful thing I could. The truth. “I can’t wait for me and Mom to leave your sorry lying ass. You deserve to be alone.”
I pedaled in a wide circle, out of his reach. Stayed long enough to see my words hit him. Hard. Then I was flying, planning my next move.
With the wind in my face I ran down everything I knew. All the answers I’d gotten just created more questions. If Eli’s death was about him blowing the whistle on Whispertown, what put his uncle and Dustin’s dad at each other’s throats after he was gone? Did Miguel find a link between the mayor and Eli, and decide to retaliate? Was it just about the money?
And Reya. How�
��d they know to try and hit her? With a car bomb?
I couldn’t imagine that was in the mayor’s white-collar criminal playbook. Miguel, then? He was the “gangsta,” and a car bomb’s classic mob movie fare. Still, hit his own niece? That’s—
The black streak appeared in my periphery like a demon revealed, roaring, forcing me to veer hard to the right. My front tire hit the curb and I floated, floated, flo—
I hit the concrete on my side with a crunch, skidded, my limp arm shielding my ribs. I traded bone for skin as the friction rubbed away several layers, despite my long sleeves. When I stopped, I couldn’t breathe, stunned.
The dark SUV rolled to a stop, its tires mere feet from my head. The engine revved, indecisive. Crush me or not?
Was this what it was like for Dustin, Carrey, and Lorenz in the moment before the BMW met the tree? Ho-hum, this thing might kill me.
The transmission clanked into park, and doors clacked open. Sneakers slapped the pavement in a rush to reach me. Two hefty dudes, Dee and Dum, dragged me upright and I saw the license plate. ZAC ATAK.
Zach Lynch joined his lackeys. “I’m going to end you.”
Russ raised the back hatch. In that instant before Dee and Dum tossed me in, I recalled another time I’d ridden in the back of an SUV, on my way to a very bad place.
My feet left the ground and I collided with the backseat. Positioned awkwardly on my shoulder in the cargo bin, I twisted in an attempt to right myself. I wasn’t fast enough.
Zach Lynch delivered a haymaker, no interference. I slumped but did not slip into blackness.
Instead, I time traveled. . . .
REWIND
DAD DIDN’T TAKE THE GUN, NOT at first.
The boy’s whimpering switched to screaming pleas that made me want to cover my ears and close my eyes, but I couldn’t manage either. “Please, Mr. Maric. I’m sorry. Oh God, please.”
Kreso slapped him silent. “Thieves do not speak to me.” He waved the gun butt-first to Dad, impatient.
“Kreso.” Dad backed up a step, changed his tone to something lighter, friendlier. “Kreso, that’s not my thing. I run book.”
“You think that I do not know what I pay you for?”
“You’re the boss, of course you—”
Kreso stepped forward, jabbing the gun at Dad like a sword. “Say again.”
Dad hesitated. “You’re the boss.”
“Take.” He grabbed Dad’s dangling hand and pressed the gun into it. “This imbecile steals from me, fouls the books you keep so beautifully. Is your privilege to punish him, no?”
“Not a privilege,” Dad said, trying to hand the gun back. Kreso had already turned away.
“Everybody here has blood on hands,” he said, pointing to his henchmen. “Him and him, blood on hands. Me, blood on hands. Consider this initiation into—” He seemed to struggle with the word, looking to the Mean-Faces for backup.
The smaller one said, “Club Badass.”
Kreso nodded, a laughing hiss. “Yesss, yessss. Club Badasss.”
Dad still held the gun like someone who needed to read the instructions, as if it were an exotic power tool. “I brought the other stuff you asked for, no problem. But you should call Bricks for this sort of thing. He’s the—”
“Bricks has other business. I called you. Now, do it.”
The boy’s head whipped between Kreso and my dad, like watching a tennis match he’d bet everything on.
“Naw, man. Come on. You don’t have t—” The kid jerked to the side, threw up on the big henchman’s shoes.
Though my eyes were teary, blurring things, I couldn’t blink if I wanted to. Hot liquid splashed the back of my throat—inspired by the boy’s retching—but I choked it back down, opting for quiet whimpering, a kind unseen since I was little-little and believed something in the closet wanted to eat me.
Dad’s arm went rigid; the gun rose level with the kid’s forehead. The boy flinched, screamed. I knew the next part and waited for it.
It didn’t come.
Dropping his arm, putting three long strides between him and the boy’s execution party, Dad said, firmly, “No. This is not what I do.”
The left side of Kreso’s mouth ticked like he was growing extra teeth. The Mean-Faces tensed and reached behind them as Kreso had done. Slowly.
Dad flipped the gun over, gripped it by the barrel, and pushed it toward Kreso. “You do your own dirty work. I’m the numbers guy.”
A moment passed. Kreso seemed torn, indecisive. Who exactly needed to die tonight? Finally, he took the gun back, and his goons relaxed.
He said, “You are lucky none of these idiots are proficient in math.”
In a motion as casual as a shrug, Kreso raised the gun and shot the boy in the face.
No boom, more of a cheap firecracker POP. The boy slumped sideway, his mouth gaped in an almost scream, leaking.
I couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. I felt tears in me, filling like a tub, but my body wouldn’t react.
Not until the headlights flicked off.
This was a newer SUV, not the one Dad got mad at Mom over. He didn’t have to cut the headlights off because they were timed. Now, Kreso would be able to see in. I couldn’t let him see me.
I dived/fell into the cargo hold, a worse mistake than if I’d just stayed where I was. They would’ve been used to the light, would’ve needed time to adjust before they saw me. But when I panicked, I knocked into the shovel and the pickax and the lye, causing a racket.
“What the hell is that?” one of the goons said.
Dad said, “Hang on.”
I heard his footsteps clomping toward the back hatch, and I tried to scramble under the tarp, or my blanket. Everything got tangled, stuck under something or another. I whimpered like the boy I watched die, tears pouring now, in total panic mode.
The latch released and the hatch rose. When Dad looked, saw me, the horror on his face led me to only one conclusion. Both of us were about to die.
The realization ripped something in me, releasing a sob that might’ve fulfilled my doom prophecy. Dad saw it coming, reached in, and clamped his palm over my mouth. I tasted gun oil.
“Is there problem?” Kreso called.
Heavy footsteps approached.
“No problem,” Dad said, releasing me while holding me silent with his stare. He grabbed the flowered blanket I’d brought along and threw it over my head. One eye remained uncovered, and I saw him pull the shovel and pickax into the open, before shoving me deeper in the vehicle and lowering the hatch. “The tools fell over, that’s all.”
He met the Mean-Faces on the side of the SUV and led them back to the Mercedes. Away from me.
Kreso said, “At least you did something right. Since you forced me to do the hard work this evening, you’ll understand if I take my assistants back to the city. I’d planned to let them help you bury him, but you should have plenty of energy since you didn’t use any of it acting like a man.”
“You’re right, Kreso. I’ll take care of the body. Go on and have yourself a good night.”
A lull, like Kreso expected more resistance, but after a moment, he said, “Good. Bury him deep.”
Another tense minute passed while I cried, and sweated, and almost threw up—waiting. The quiet German engine turned over and I heard the fading sounds of the car driving away.
The hatch rose again, hard and fast enough to strain the hinges. “Tony, Jesus Christ. Come here.”
I leaped at him, tried to press into him. Then I remembered the POP and I pushed away, though there was nowhere to go. “I want Mommy! I want Mommy!”
“Okay, son. Okay. But I have to do something first.”
He still held the shovel.
We were in those woods for four hours while Dad dug, then filled. The ride home nearly silent. No music. Little talk. He did say, “I don’t know what you saw, but—”
“I didn’t see anything.” I spoke the wish I had.
He couldn’t have been
satisfied. I thought he’d ask me about it, make me talk. People always said talking was a good thing. He never brought it up again.
Dad paid Rachelle then told her never to come back. When Mom arrived from her dinner, she sensed something was wrong, because she kept asking Dad, and me, then Dad again what had happened.
We didn’t tell. The start of a family tradition.
The Bordeaux household underwent a decline after that. I didn’t play with my Desperation Friends, and no longer answered questions about my dad’s job with a grin. There was nothing to smile about. POP!
Dad and Mom fought more, liked each other’s company less. Dad got several calls from the boss. I never knew what they were about, but I wondered if Dad was still the numbers guy. Or had he become something else?
Bricks came around less. The last time I saw him, he got into a fight with Dad, told him, “If you’ve got half of the big brain you say you have, you won’t bring that up again. Not around me. Loyalty is what keeps us alive in this business. Don’t forget it.”
Dad didn’t forget it. He ignored it. A couple of weeks later, federal agents roused us from our beds, telling us we were new people. I could never buy it, though.
If I was new, I wouldn’t hear that same old POP in my dreams.
CHAPTER 41
THE VEHICLE BUCKED, ITS SUSPENSION GROANING l like old people getting out of chairs, as we swung onto a rutted road bordered by tall trees. Light-headed from Zach’s punch and the overwhelming scent of exhaust, I nearly vomited. A thought flashed through my mind—Do it! The more DNA you leave, the better. That’s when I realized I might die.
A dark SUV, like this one, ran Dustin off the road. What if it wasn’t about Whispertown or the mayor? Zach had been insane drunk that night. He could’ve caused the accident because Dustin, Carrey, and Lorenz embarrassed him.
I’d embarrassed him, too. So much that snatching me off the street in broad daylight became reasonable. What else fit Zach’s twisted reasoning?
We hit a vicious pothole, bouncing me against the floor. Starbursts exploded before my eyes. I yelped.
Russ said, “I think he’s waking up.”
